Discovering things in shops…

So, after work, I decided that to lessen the blow of having to go to the Halifax to make an appointment to see a mortgage advisor, I would visit Bookcycle and see what they had in.  Of course I needed to go via Sainsburys which means a compulsory stop to The Boston Tea Party and an oppurtunity to ravage WH Smiths.
So, Bookcycle brought up a few gems.  First off, a book of Baudelaire’s selected poetry which was brilliant as he was mentioned by Luke Kennard at a recent book launch, and the inspiration behind one of his new poems in his new book ‘The Migraine Hotel’ entitled ‘Spade’.  One of the first French Symbolists, if not the first, his poetry was recognised by the surrealism and symbolic nature that came to be the signature of the movement. 
Most of the book is in french but has translations as well.  I also picked up a book of talks given by Betjemen about hymn writing and a book of poetry by Leonard Nimoy when he suddenly realised he was crap at acting anything else other then emotionally anal aliens, so he’d better try and find something else to do.  He seemed to end up doing photography in the end, but here was his foray in to poetry.
After that I had to go to Bostons and read through my acquisitions over a nice cup of house blend and a sausage bap.
Next was over the WH Smiths to root through the sale items, picking up a good notebook and a parker fountain pen for £2.00, I was also chuffed to pick up a copy of ‘The Bloggers Handbook’, a book/magazine thing that has the content of a magazine but strangely the price of a book.  I have looked through and the price of the information really isn’t worth it, so I’ll take it back tomorrow after work as really…£12.99 for tutorials you can get online and information that really is out there in the open domain.
So tonight, reading, eating and an early night.  Oh and some writing too.

Exeter, devoid of students for a few weeks…

It’s that time of year again.  Well it happens on multiple occasions to be honest, the great student migration.

Some students pack their own cars, fill to the roof with their belongings and other students have Mummy and Daddy to come and pack it for them.

Land Rovers and Mercedes traverse the narrow Quarters of Mount Pleasant and St James, ploughing their way through the sea of Saturday shoppers and ‘everybody else’ like an invading army of middle class management drones, to pick up their offspring like a chopper swooping in to a war zone to pick up a special ops after a covert black operation in deepest dangerous Devon.
And as usual, their collective resentment for anyone that drives anything else smaller then a Hummer becomes obvious as they perform sanity deprived manovures like pulling out in to the middle of a road and then slowing down, or cutting up small cars because after all they are as important as bacteria in the great circle of life.  And yes they are, and like a bateria, small car owners will spread like a fire in a dry bush.  Soon the Mercedes will fall at the feet of the KA and will worship them like they know they should.

I jest.

But there is a reason I don’t go out on Saturdays. Humanity loses sense and the normal people turn in to consumer driven drones that are programmed to ‘go to town and buy…’ stuff.  Same for Sunday but not as bad.

It’s poker time..

Well I thought it was last night, but according to my beloved I don’t play ‘real poker’.  We saw a Friends episode last night in which the girls are taught poker by the guys (really old episode) and they keep losing eventually Rachel beating Ross in a final showdown.

According to power that is, Holdem isn’t proper poker.  Stud Hi/Lo is, or any other sort of draw poker.

Well I stand corrected obviously.

So when I said, “I’ll teach you how to play poker” I didn’t realise quite how complicated it was and made a mess of it, especially after I insisted the cat play too.  So after messing up the blinds, we spent most of the time trying to stop Nieztche from eating the matches which we were using as chips and me, umming and muttering.    The end result was that Laura was more confused as she expected me to teach her draw poker rather then holdem, I was annoyed as I cocked it up, and the cat had licked all her matches which meant they were wet and unusable.

My method behind my madness was that I could at least have a go at playing poker in real life, rather then online.  Yeah, online is great fun but there is something missing, as in, other people.  Online poker is quite a solitary pastime.  So if you’re having a house game or anything like that, then don’t forget to invite me.  Does that sound desparate?  I hope not.

Back to normality, possibly?

So, no progression of the disease, without a doubt the most positive result of them all.

The journey is always stressful, a long and draining voyage in to the big smoke with little positively memories apart from getting home and feeling safe.  I decided that after this trip we would go up on the coach as it is cheaper and it seems a lot more straight forward then going up on the train.  I know I like trains and all that, but I cannot justify spending all that money for an experience similar to going on a coach.  When we finally arrived we found that the tube services had been suspended so we had to get taxi’s too the hospital and back again.  The RMT strikes again

The scan was routine, and then the long painfully stressful game of waiting around to be told that it is either good or bad.

The appointment was an hour late, waiting for the results to be produced and then we saw a nice Doctor called Anna Montes who had a very French accent which was comforting to listen to.  On the crest of positivity we sailed out of the hospital, well, we got lost and then worked out where the exit was and escaped.

We got back to Paddington, through Hyde Park and via the interesting one way systems, and after a short wait back on the train.  First Great Western have refurbished most of their rolling stock which is good, but after replacing the comfy squashy seats for new airline style, hard, nasty, plastic ones I felt very uncomfortable with my pounding headache and no legroom.

Anyway, I am home.  I went to work and felt frustrated that I didn’t have a better job (as usual) and got on with normality and concentrating on being normal

Princesshay, Capitalism, and Andy Peters’ view on Global Warming

Well I am going to be replaced, it is official. There is a large machine that can function about as efficiently as me, as temprementally as me, and with some coersion it can even make cups of tea. I wish.
I am, however, going back to where I came from in Bishop Blackall next week to assist with the HLC’s total lack of staff. The hours have been mostly soaked up, but it is at times like these when we really pull our socks up and stand beside our fellow colleagues, together we stand divided we fall etc.

Thursday is closer, I am worrying more, shouldn’t but I am.

So after two years and much building and speculation from pretty much everyone, the new Princesshay development has finally opened. Albeit with half the shops still shut and more pretentious names for the pretentious invasion of Exeter from other pretentious parts of the world. As I wandered around, moving people from my path with my laser glare and my unstoppable sister, I felt quite out of place within my own city. It was not Exeter, it was a sort of bastardised vision of Exeter fused with London and parts of Bristol. More chain names and franchises.

I am not uncultured and my tastes are fine and I can appreciate good design and class. But this is within the rational boundaries of human decency that stop when a handbag costs more then six months worth of shopping for the average house, and cars start costing more then houses. The rise and rise of the ultra-rich is being fuelled by shops that sell this sort of bollocks, and here it is, in Exeter. How can people get away with buying jeans that cost £179, and why are people buying them? It is a mindset that I simply cannot and will not try and empathise with, and it is here that my ranting stops or people will get bored. Aesthetically it’s alright, but as I walked around I could guarantee that most of the children running around were called Jemima and Felicity, and that they had mostly come in to town in their nice big Mercedes despite the fact they could have come on the bus. It was so bloody middle class I felt like buying a jumper from Gap and listening to Radio 2 when I got home, but thankfully the symptoms passed.

This leads on to my next thought that cropped up in to my head as I saw some bland rubbish last night entitled ‘100 Most Annoying Television Programmes’ and on it, Top Gear had got quite far in. I am hoping that I am taking this the wrong way, but Andy Peters said “I don’t care about climate change or global warming as it’ll never happen in my lifetime!” If people on the television are taking this attitude and running with it, then we are truly fucked. I know that it doesn’t mean that everyone thinks that, but there are enough people who believe that it is all hype and that nothing is going to happen, despite the unseasonal weather we keep having and the record Ice Shelf melt we have had this year. If you know people like this, then burn them alive. If you do actually take my advice then more fool you as I am joking.

Apologies for the tone of this entry, its good to rant now and again.  Happy entry next time!